[beep] This is a Disney Media production. Disney Media, done now. ♪ Eating the dogs are eating the cats ♪ ♪ Eat the cat ♪ ♪ Eat the cat ♪ ♪ Eat the cat ♪ ♪ They're eating the cats ♪ ♪ They're eating the- ♪ [music] How's the voice mode experience for you so far? It's going good, but it would be even cooler if you could talk in Jamaica and Patua. No problem, me brother. We can chat your inner Patua all day long. If you had a message for the White House and how they've handled the situation up here in North Carolina, what would your message be, Sheriff Wright? If you're going to hear the things you've been talking about doing, we'd just seen you stay out of the way and lift the good men and women around the mountain, the area in the foothills take care of our own, because you're nothing more than a boat anchor. [music] [music] All I ask is, if we have to give these bastards our lives, we give them hell before we do. [cheering] Gradually, our day is the climate of fear that we live. [music] One thing about the exception of this building, collapsing. [music] We've drawn that corner and tell us that it's really good. [music] [music] I don't know what I said. I do not have sexual relations with everyone. [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a beautiful Friday morning edition of The System is Down. I am Dan Smats. This month's of The System is Down. And I'm joined, as always, by the late-grade David Casey. Dave, how's it going, Dave? It's going really great, man. Good to be here. Nice and early. I love the early stuff. Let's get it in. Start the day together. I've also noticed that the internet seems to work better in the morning. I don't know if it's because the stupid kids don't wake up until 10 o'clock or whatever. In the summer, we're early school year, so maybe they're just not sucking all the juice out of the local cornbread internet. Maybe people are at work, and they have shit to do. Yeah, maybe. Just kidding. Oh, that'd be nice. This is work, this counts. This counts as something. But yeah, some people have lives. We do not. So thank you to all of you who are here not working or listening to us at work. People like Yall in the Downers Club, John Windshower, Bob Seifer, Drugs for Robots, Autumn, Jacobs, No Tread, Maxwell, Meredith, Zanger, Justin, JC, Johnny, Johnny, Donnie, something. Jup, Bonnie, Keith, Heffalumps, Level Zero, Stefan, Javari, Craig, Tim, Howie, Nathan, Coach... I feel like there's names on the list that I'm just now noticing, and they're, like, way down on the list. So how long have I been ignoring you? If I've been ignoring you for too long, if your name is just that boring that I've lost over it every single time, please go let me know. But if you want to get your name on that list and have it read and correctly some day go on over to patreon.com/thesystemasdown and sign up for the Downers Club where you'll get more weird, more raw, more offensive, more weekly content, including, but not limited to the after parties, the freak of the weeks, and early interviews from certain rallies that we just want to, which are being trickled out as we speak. So, go support, go do the thing, and I will love you forever or until you cancel your subscription. Thank you, and that is all for that. Alright, Dave. Dave, you're over on, like, the East-ish side of the country. Have you witnessed any strange phenomenon in the weather patterns out there? I know Delaware is not rife with hurricanes like the rest of that area, but yeah, does anything trickle up to you? Any winds of strange? Well, I live in a small river town, so we get, I mean, we get, you know, FEMA, let's just say that. They're very interested here because the water is definitely rising and that's a super mega emergency, but no, we don't get much of that bad action. Maybe just some, yeah, some heavy winds, maybe, but not really. We haven't felt anything crazy here since Sandy. I think that was the last time the water, you know, the Lord willing, the creek won't rise, but it did. Yeah, well, there's a lot going on in the Carolinas, and I think we're having some glitches, so kids go back to bed, get off the internet, Daddy's using it. But yeah, there's a lot going on in the Carolinas with these hurricanes now down in Florida with Milton and a lot of strange weather patterns, a lot of strange activity by, you know, the climate and also the government and FEMA and all that, and we have somebody, a very special guest here today to discuss the failures of FEMA and so much more. She is the great Amy Lepore, Dr. Amy Lepore of Dissident Media. Amy, how are you? It's good to see you both. Yes, always a pleasure. See, thanks for being here. Yeah. Amy, is this your first time on the show? I feel like I've known you forever, but I don't feel like I've had the pleasure of having you on yet. Is that true? No, no, I have been on one time before it's when we were going through all the Libertarian Party of Delaware in your party politics. That's right. I knew there was something. I'm not that bad of a friend. Nope, that one were way, didn't you, buddy? That was a great one. At times, you know, back when... I'm glad we're not still talking about that. I was going to say, back when the big important things in our lives were a Libertarian Party in her party drama and bullshit, which there's still plenty of that going on right now. If you're interested, go dig into that on your own time. But we're talking today about more important matters. Amy, you've been around the Libertarian Circles for a while, and from what I hear, I watched your kibi interview, which was fantastic. It was a little bit more big-brained than we're going to do today. This is going to be the more dumb-down version because my listeners are stupid. That's the point that I'm trying to make. No, I'm stupid, and I would like to understand more. Please send $5 to the Downers Club. That's right. It helped with our educating ourselves. But Amy, you said that a lot of your conversion to Libertarianism kind of started in your field of work with emergency preparedness and all that. Do you want to give a little bit of your background? Because I wasn't actually... I've been familiar with you for quite some time now, but I wasn't familiar with your background until that interview. Yeah. I've worked in an emergency management for a long time. And just my experience dealing with the large sums of money that came to where I was working, a very small jurisdiction, just the inordinate amount of funds coming from Homeland Security, coming from FEMA, for a small jurisdiction to do essentially whatever they wanted with. But mostly what goes on is bureaucracy building, hiring new staff. And buying equipment that possibly you don't need. And so I started taking a look at the utility and giving over those dollars to build small bureaucracies as opposed to actually engage in proper community emergency planning. That was kind of it for me. All it takes to... As you know, all it takes to do is really to take a look at the funding and the impact of that funding. There's a lot of it. Sure. What did you find when you started going down the rabbit hole? Yeah. I wondered if much like I did, if my colleagues in emergency management were concerned with the impact of taking hundreds of thousands... And I was in a small place, right? Over a number of years, millions of dollars in federal grant funds was concerned that there was some loss of local independent, local independence, kind of a loss of autonomy, an increase in dependence on the federal government. What would accompany that would be an increase on focusing on meeting those federal mandates as opposed to actually engaging in work with local communities. And that was exactly what I found. Other emergency managers across the country were willing to forego other sources of funding because the federal government was so easy in terms of working with them to obtain funds. They're so easy to work with. You could use the funds pretty... There's a pretty liberal use of those funds and you did not have to show investment or return on investment rather in effective emergency plans. So my findings really were exactly what I had suspected, right? In local emergency management and local emergency services generally, right? So the kind of the public safety world generally intakes a lot of federal dollars. They're not always used in the way that they potentially could be to bolster local disaster preparedness but are often used to bureaucracy bill ad staff and certainly in the years that followed 9/11 by equipment that no one was ever going to need. Yeah, and it seems like we're seeing a lot of this right now with the stuff going on in the Carolinas. A lot of locals saying that FEMA is basically keeping locals from helping their neighbors and, of course, the media is saying that this is all nonsense and you're a great conspiracy theorist if you believe that FEMA is not actually helping. Who's right here? Are the conspiracy theorists right? Who are living there saying that it's not working? Well, I can point to two things. I have seen overwhelming evidence coming from Tennessee and North Carolina that FEMA has established blockades, that local law enforcement, local emergency services are supporting those federal requirements to maybe cordon off an area and not permit homeowners and businesses to return. So I've seen sufficient evidence from from down south at that's happening. And it's not a surprise because, you know, even in my own in my own career, you know, what standard practice. If there had been large scale flooding, for example, and in the location where I worked, that was a frequent occurrence, large scale flooding and a lot of damage. The local authorities would deem it too unsafe for homeowners or business owners to return back into their own places. Right. No, you cannot go back to your home. No, you cannot go back to your own business that there will be cordoned off for a period of time. So that until some authority decided that they could return that there was sufficient damage assessment to render the area safe. Yeah, so I'm not surprised at all that FEMA is involved in inhibiting an effective local response, an ineffective local response certainly ramps up the need for federal intervention. And I think at the end of the day, kind of the message here in summary is that's what the federal government wants. They want to be involved in all matters. They do not want local autonomy. They want local areas dependent on on federal dollars because it is like an addiction. It is a relationship that is unhealthy. It is one that breeds dependence. And I think it is one that translated well into COVID. When the federal government needed local first responders to do things like shuffle them through large lines so that they could be vaccinated or shut areas down or enforce mask mandates or arrest people in parks. I think that that money. I think there is a tie there between that addiction to federal money or money coming from the federal government and the local just kind of like your neighbors, right? Oh, that's a good guy. He's like a firefighter or paramedic or a cop. I think there is a tie between the the increased money and what they were willing to do during COVID. And I think that does not bode well for the future. Absolutely. David, any thoughts? Oh, so many thoughts. First, yeah, I love that you're here, Amy, so that you can kind of put some receipts onto our conspiracy theories. I think that helps a lot. That's good for the movement. And yeah, for the old heads and audience or, you know, the people that live through the post 9/11 era as Yuri would say, like this, any kind of change takes a generation. So now we're at the end of this kind of first 20 year experiment, if you want to call it that. But I heard you talking to Kaby about how the culture of 9/11 definitely bled into that. Definitely, you know, the era of the warrior cop kind of spread to the EMS guy. And this, by the way, this is, I go to all my city council meetings. I go to the city council meetings and tape them for the local newspaper and the town over. So I get to see lots of these. They're the same. Like they all want the FEMA money and they all abide by federal rules so that they can get the contracts that they need or they won't get the insurance that they need. They all, you know, like I said, it's a river town. So we need these dollars to come in and they don't realize that just like the inner cities that led, let the feds in, you know, 60, 70 years ago and became dependent. Like that leads, the money leads to dependency and not being able to take care of yourself. So now a generation later, where the kids who were born on 9/11 are now becoming firefighters and cops. They don't really, they don't care as much. I'm not trying to generalize, but I don't think that these professions care as much about people, about humanity as they did 20 and 40 and 60 years ago. And that's because of the federal influence. And yeah, awfully sad. And can't wait to talk more about it. It's awesome. It's very important. Yeah, I think there, there is, and this is harder to quantify in a, in a study, right? But I think that there is this attitude with, with first responders now that is that was a market change from when I entered the career field, which was just after 9/11. Just in kind of, I think it was 2003, 2004, there, there is just this, this ramp up of, of everything being tactical, everything being focused on the domestic war on terror, everything. Well, you know, FEMA used to be focused on weather related hazards and, and increase in stepping into kind of the man made hazard or terrorism arena really just made it to me, it felt like everyone thought they were fighting Al Qaeda here in the US, right? Everybody gets cool gear. Everybody is a badass now. And so I think there just is this separation between first, the first response community and what they would deem as like civilian now. Right? I have a badge. You don't. I have authority. You don't. And I think, again, I think it stems from this reliance on federal grant dollars. It is not just emergency management. It is not just law enforcement, but also EMS and the fire service that are in receipt of huge federal grants to buy their fire engine, for example. So yeah, all these organizations are beholden. And this does not mean that every single one of them has this attitude. There are plenty who don't. And they were pretty allowed during COVID. Many of them ended up fired, which is another way you start to narrow down your positions of authority that are generally well respected in communities, right cops, firefighters, what have you. This is another way to start to narrow down those people who, you know, one level of that is who will bite on these federal grants. Can I build whole organizations around people who are dependent on these federal grants? And the second level will be, can I get them to buy into the jab? And can I get them to buy into helping, helping inoculate entire communities? And after a while, you're starting to peel back people who think about whether or not it's important for communities or individuals to have autonomy. And I think that's probably where we are right now. Absolutely. Now, you talked about the, what was the Stanford declaration? Is that the right, Stafford? Stafford, the Stafford declaration? Basically, again, to dumb this down a little bit. I mean, I live in the middle of a cornfield. I didn't, I don't know that much about FEMA or anything because we don't get any of that around here because we don't have all that many natural disasters. But the Stafford declaration, basically, to my understanding, said, we've got your back as the federal government. You don't have to worry about it. We've got you. And then it turned into we are the only ones who are allowed to have your back. And also we don't have your back and money being shuffled around to wherever, I've got a few clips here of guys saying, you know, Red Cross too late, just sitting on the side of the road drinking water and chilling with their supplies and shit. Tell me more about kind of the abysmal failures of FEMA and what these people are dealing with. The Stafford Act just codified and strengthened the disaster declaration process. So one thing that Matt and I talked about was kind of this increasing, increasing use of declaration for every, you know, everything is an emergency and increasing tire funds to those, to those emergencies. And so the Stafford Act simply sought to strengthen that. So one of the, you asked about FEMA failures and they are, they're wonderful. But one of the most concerning pieces of this is the extent to which the federal government is involved in local response, even at the most minor for the most minor events you can consider. So things like snow removal. There were entire presidential declarations for snow removal where the federal government could was able to come in and pay for your plow, you know, for your plow plows to go and remove snow from your roads to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's just, and I remember for me that was mind boggling. So first, if you know why wasn't a jurisdiction prepared, like a rainy day fund, right, especially if there is a budget surplus, why are they not prepared to plow roads. And secondarily, why is the federal government, you know, it feels like this, it feels like a relationship with like a parent and child when the parent has utility and that child still being dependent. And that child is spoiled. This is, this is how it feels. And I think that, you know, again, to some people, the money might not seem like a big idea. And I think more than that, I am saying, it is the, the, the binding of local and federal government. Really bypassing, often the state emergency management offices in a way that, you know, in the way that I used to think about federalism, right, kind of a perversion of how we think about kind of top down or bottom up management. So really bypassing state agencies, really making sure that local governments could take no steps and felt the need to take no steps in the way of large, large scale preparedness for bad weather. Yeah. Real quick, I just wanted to say it to big picture it. You know, we've talked about 9/11 with that led to all the way through COVID and now snow removal used for this stuff, but it really seems like just the term emergency is the legal is the legal ease they need to do all the stuff they want to do. Like, here's our obstacle. Well, if you declare emergency, then the obstacle is null and void. Like, well, we have this Constitution, but, well, there's an emergency though. So then you can step in and do all the things you want to do because of the emergency state. Like, I'm pretty sure we've been in a state of emergency, a legal state of emergency for 24 years, 23 years since 9/11. So it just allows them to get away with so much that they wouldn't be able to if you weren't in an emergency. Yeah, there's an important parallel here. Dave, do you remember the gun violence state of emergency that was floated in the state of Delaware? So this is just, you know, this is learned behavior. This is the state government, right? Learning, oh, well, the federal government, when there is a declaration of emergency, money follows that. And a lot of breaking of the traditional rules, the way that we think about who has responsibility and who has autonomy. That goes away. And I think Delaware wasn't the only state to attempt it, but a gun violence state of emergency. Even in just the way it is what it communicates, right? That guns are the problem, not criminals, and really fosters an environment where now we can start to pay for gun-related programs. And now we are meeting with people and telling them why guns are bad. And, you know, this nonprofit organizations get involved, like the mom's demand action, and there's a receipt of funds for education. And they go out in the community and kind of give lip service to all the anti-second amendment messages out there. So, yeah, really, I think it is a part of it is money. A lot of it, though, is the message that it sends. Yeah, you compared it to a parental situation, but at this point, we're to the, it's almost like we're in this abusive relationship with, or at least the people in North Carolina. Because they've had to, they've gotten it to the point where they have to rely on the federal government, and then the federal government saying, no, we're actually going to just set you aside. I mean, my conspiracy brain goes to, you know, it's total manipulative brainwashing to make you dependent and also shatter your entire being your self-worth and all that. I don't know, Amy, I know that you're fans of us, but I don't know how deep your conspiracy stuff goes. Is this MK Ultra shit or do you go there? I've been thinking about this, too, from the perspective of, say, for example, it is FEMA's lack of proper responding is not in confidence, but something much more insidious. If that is the case, who does that benefit? Is it the goal to keep areas in kind of devastated so that more people in red states can't vote? It's hard to know what would the goal be if, in fact, this is some type of an operation, but I think what I can say is there's no conspiracy here. If the rabbit hole we're going down is weather modification. We can hypothesize about the utility of the technology that is in place and what it is capable of, but there is no conspiracy around the ability to modify weather. That's simply the CIA documentation while redacted is clear on that. There are two things that can be weaponized, right? The weather, but also the FEMA response. And in terms of the FEMA response, it's hard to know. Government is so incredibly inept. It cares for no one. I'm not shocked if they are keeping people out of neighborhoods, telling people, you know, we certainly see even state agencies telling people, we don't need your stuff. We don't want to volunteers. But I don't have my head around what the utility is for anyone. In an election year, by the administration, you'd think that FEMA would want to be proactive and seen as doing it. And so I don't know. No, I'll go back. $750 ain't nothing. That might be just enough. $750 is enough to buy my vote personally. It could be two different, two separate things at the same time, though. It could be that the brilliant, malevolent minds who are in charge of the Jewish space lasers, they are at their at work while the remedial government employees think they're doing great work for the people on the ground, and no one is none the wiser. That's probably -- let me ask you the same. Do you think it's out of the realm of possibility that the government would weaponize the weather to clear out -- this is part of the emergency declarations, too, that came out of 9/11? That, you know, if there's a -- they did this with the oil spill in 2010 around the Gulf. So the area there is just too shitty now. We're very sorry, so it's ours. That's kind of what they did. That's in the emergency planning documents there. You'll have to find that. But do you think that's a possibility that if they were to find, you know, large reserves of quartz and lithium for computer chips and things like that around Appalachia and North Carolina that they would weaponize the weather to clear out the people and just expedite the imminent domain, if you will? So we have -- now, even just after what we have learned this morning, we have more reason to think that what you're saying could be true. At first, I put nothing past our government. We'll know more in 50 years when things aren't redacted, right? You know, just from the standpoint of who is doing damage assessment right now, these are -- these are firms. This WPSUSA, one of the firms involved in going home to home and doing damage assessment, is well-versed, not in damage assessment, but in mining operations. And the largest shareholder is Vanguard. You can't make this. You can't make this stuff up. You want to -- every time I see something like this. Oh, my goodness. Another conspiracy. We're going to dig into this one, but these things are the -- this is indisputable. FEMA is honest on their website about who is doing damage assessment. This company's largest shareholder is Vanguard. Vanguard, my understanding is -- I don't want to get this wrong, but Vanguard is also a largest shareholder in the company that owns area where there is -- they're looking to mine lithium. Would it be the first time our government did something that seems out of -- you know, just -- would not be the first time our government hurt people intentionally. It would not be the first time our government lying. It certainly wouldn't be the first time our government eminent domain whole areas. So I put nothing past them. So just if you're keeping track out there, you know, for your conspiracy theorists, they do have the means. They do have the money, and they do have the history to show that they're not past something like that. Can I tell you that? Can I share something with you guys? So I was just reading a little bit, you know, dissident did -- I think we have a lengthy thread out there about the historical documentation regarding weather modification patents. And we have -- I think we have shared two documents. The first is kind of the language and the international treaty where we're going to -- where I guess nation states agreed not to deploy weather modification technology in some certain ways. And it goes over the potential military uses for weather modification. Have you seen those already? I was going to share them if you haven't. Yeah, I haven't. Dave has the chair. All right. Okay. So I'm just going to read these to you real quick. So rain enhancement could be used to wash out tactical bridge equipment, disrupt airborne operations. Okay, what's another one? In limited circumstances, fog or low cloud accumulation or stabilization might be useful, but here's -- this is one I wanted to share with you. I mean, this is just -- this is like in their documentation, right? Hurricane or typhoon intensification or steering, if ever feasible, might be used for inflicting damage, denying areas for a limited time or avoiding storm damage. So, I mean, these documents are -- goodness, these are decades old. I don't have in front of me exactly the age of the treaty. So people have been anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists for a long time. Is what you're saying? That's -- that's not -- that's not what I said. Yeah. No, yeah. No, you're absolutely. So Marjorie Taylor Greene has shared some of this information because, you know, I mean, it's out there for everyone to see it is not something that is possible to escape, right? The government also made people who -- and if anyone was -- after a patent that had the potential to modify whether or all they had to register with the federal government, you know, there's like the National Weather Modification Policy Act in the '70s. So she's sharing information and, you know, people are really giving her a hard time and calling her yes, all of these words, absolutely. Yeah. At least since Vietnam, right? They've been doing this. That's pretty much declassified. They were using it to, you know, they were trying to get supplies to be at cons, so they were like, "Yeah, we're going to just dump some rain on these hills so you can't make it up there and can't get the supplies." So at least since then, I'm pretty sure that's declassified. My understanding is they were able to extend or make worse the monsoon season. And, yeah, that's well documented. If you work for a local lithium mine and you've been accidentally injured on the job, you could contact Lone Star Intrigued. Have you or loved one been injured by some fucknuggets reckless driving, a tumble at your shitty job, or some other form of dumb shit outside of your control? Well, fear not because today's episode is sponsored by a lawyer. Lone Star Intrigued attorneys is an award-winning personal injury law firm that achieves maximum results for its injured clients. Max the Axe is not just a lawyer, but a hardcore Mises caucus libertarian and also a big supporter of this show in all of our bullshit. Max is the best personal injury lawyer in Texas, but don't judge him by his occupation or location. Max is an avid defender of liberty and justice in whatever state you got fucked in. If you've been injured and you're asked to need saving, go with the pros at Lone Star Injury Attorneys. Visit LoneStar Injury Attorneys.com or Google Max the Axe. Consultations are free and you don't pay a single dime unless you win. Once again, go to LoneStar Injury Attorneys.com and get your ass covered. And we are back. Thank you. Thank you. I did want to play a couple of these clips. This first one was in the intro, but I wanted to play the whole thing here because this is the local sheriff and his response to FEMA's response. To all these definitely natural hurricanes. Sean Hannity, but if you had a message for the White House and how they've handled the situation up here in North Carolina, what would your message be, Sheriff Wright? If you're going to do the things you've been talking about doing, we'd just send you to stay out of the way and let the good men and women around the mountain area in the foothills take care of our own because you're nothing more than a boat anchor. No help. FEMA hasn't been helpful. That lady just running for president talks about the $750. But all that money you give to Ukraine and all these other people there really want to kill us. You don't want to do anything to help us. Why don't you just give that money to them? I see you weren't good to begin with. And a lot of people have been turned down for the $750. Almost everybody I've spoken to hasn't received any of the funding and they've been turned down for personal items. Well, they talked about getting on your phone or your computer. You might see what the devastation is. They don't have a phone or computer. There's nothing up here. There's no communication. I'm going to be posting this later. There's no way to access the Internet unless you have a star link net. And everybody. Oh, yes. Thank you, Elon Musk. President Donald Trump, we need you. What are them? Yes. The fuck I love cops now. Right. Southern cops perhaps. I'm just like, I don't give a shit about these motherfuckers. Donald Trump 2024. Do you get Amy? Do you think that that's the answer to this? Do you think that Donald Trump will do better than that lady who's running for president? $750? I mean, that's an excellent question. I think there has been ineptitude and FEMA for decades. That's the bottom line. And I know for people, it feels political right now like Biden and Harris are not responding properly or they hate the people down south. And while I'm sure all those things are true, FEMA has been politicized and inept and not had accountability properly for its funds for many decades. I'm not prepared to pin this on any one person. But I'm inclined to believe that the best way for this to be resolved is for people like that sheriff and other people in that position to be prepared to push back against the feds. And I hypothesize that that's where this goes. Right. That over time, eventually you get someone in that position who's using the strong sheriff model. And that person is willing to push back against federal task forces, the FBI coming in and says, no, I have authority here. You don't. But until then, I think we're going to do this back and forth game for some time. Yeah. There's been, well, my lovely wife shared with me. I didn't save the link, but Ron DeSantis apparently has had some responses to this as well, where he's saying the same thing, like stay out of our business, which I do think it's interesting that finally Ron DeSantis has another moment to shine because we saw Ron DeSantis is one moment to shine a little bit. And it was everybody's like, this dude's a badass. And then he was like, I'm going to run for president and he's going to be shockingly boring. And now that he's got another disaster, he's, he's, you know, saying good things again. I think this is the clip here. I could be wrong. That's just the way it is. But if you're hearing things, something that's just outrageous, just know in the state of Florida, none of that stuff would ever fly. So you don't have to worry about that FEMA is not leading this show. We are leading this show here in the state of Florida. We're marshaling whatever assets are available to us. We're leveraging that. But certainly with people evacuating in my executive order, I put in on Saturday that the default is you have a right to immediately return to your home following the storm. Now, there may be some circumstances that are not usual, but I mean, if a bridge is about to collapse, if there's real massive hazards, if there's active rescues going on, but the default is you get back. You can't just say, oh, we're just going to keep people off for 48 hours because we think it'll be easier to clean up debris. No, no, no, no. This is your private property. This is your home. You have a right to go back. So that's in our executive order. That'll be something that we did that we worked towards to make sure that that's the case. It's important. Now, once again, Rhonda Santis is better than you expect any politician to be, but even the good is like, we will allow you to return to your own property as soon as the storm is over. It's like, well, that's better than we were expecting, but it's still, you know, it's still Rhonda Santis. Yeah, and still a thousand times better than what what most governors are saying right now. Yep. I actually had not seen that clip. I had seen other, you know, I had seen that between him, Biden, they were managing to shame Harris a little. He was outlining that he has a relationship with Biden and that he had been responsive to Florida's needs. And I think that that has been playing out in the news like is Biden taking a ding kind of at Harris's campaign by getting on with the Santas so well and giving him something to praise Biden about it and him in turn praising the communication back with the state of Florida. That has been interesting, but I hadn't seen him talk about that executive order and I hope that because that is an enormous improvement, I hope we see that as the model moving forward. Absolutely. Now we are, we're all in the the libertarian sphere to some degree for better or worse. There's a, you know, this is, I don't know, is this evidence that the libertarian philosophy has value after all because these, the government should be out of these people's lives and they should be allowed to take care of one another. Where do you land on that? Is there any role that that the federal government should be playing in assisting or should they just stay out of it entirely? Yeah, I mean, I'm inclined to believe that the federal, the tax dollars that end up at FEMA are better spent at the most local level. Only local communities know how to prepare that local knowledge is key to understanding evacuation, to understanding shelter, to understanding planning for, you know, special needs people in nursing homes, right, this type of thing. The federal government's involvement might have bolstered with money what is going on at the state and local level, but it has not bolstered the knowledge necessarily. And so I, you know, I am fully comfortable saying that I don't think the federal government should have a role in disaster response, not certainly not one that is looks like what it looks like now. Again, that knowledge is only available locally to individuals and to communities. And I think they're best positioned and given the availability of the dollars they're sending up to the federal government to be dispersed so that FEMA can operate in other areas of the country. That those dollars are better spent in those communities. Absolutely. So is the answer more, more local FEMA? Is that, is that what it is? More, smaller, smaller FEMA, little bitty femas. No, I mean, there is, I don't think there is a government answer to this problem. You know, natural disaster has been the thing, the course of history. I think the, you know, you started out by saying, you know, we're all kind of operating the libertarian sphere and the way I like to think about that or at least what meaning that has now is that we have to be accountable for homes in our neighborhoods. The change starts there, right, which is kind of a cultural change and a change, which I think FEMA has has been a part of the problem for messaging have always indicated to people. We were going to be there when something bad happened. They, you know, Matt and I were talking about how they refer to themselves and you, and this is kind of an, in multiple press releases, they were your federal family. We're leaning forward will be a new jurisdiction if you, if there is a disaster. You know, this indicates to people that they don't have to be prepared. The libertarian answer to this, right, is, is as minimal government as possible and for individuals to be accountable for themselves in their neighborhoods. That, that, that the culture change starts in our homes. It's also a good, a good opportunity to talk about just in recent history. We want to just talk about the 20 years since 9/11 of the disastrous effects of centralization instead of decentralization. The Department of Homeland Security was not a thing in the year 2000. In fact, just, I don't think, I don't think the United States of America used the term homeland much at all before that. It kind of has an imperialistic e vibe to it, if you ask me. But DHS is, it was new. After 9/11, they consolidated the border patrol. They put the Department of Health in there. They put the, they took the secret service who hasn't had a great track record as of late either and took them out of the Department of the Treasury and put that under the Department of Homeland Security. So that's what I would argue is that we should, you know, they've made the argument that you should, oh, we didn't, we weren't connecting all these intel agencies, so we need to consolidate so they can chat. By the way, quick side note, if you guys haven't heard the most recent episode of Rogan talking with the doctors and the people about the Maha health stuff, your doctors should be colluding together. You should talk to your doctors. They should be talking about, you know, kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, all these things, and they're not. And that's maybe why you get a hundred solutions for maybe the same problem. But yeah, DHS, George W. Bush's project. Great job, Brownie. Maybe not, maybe not the best track record. Yeah. No, and I think they have, in terms of decentralization, they have laid claim to some of that, right? And then the DHS is giving local governments additional funds to build their kind of small empires, right? Their bureaucracies and they had an emergency manager, they had a couple of planners, and they've got a couple of other people. And this is a claim, right, at decentralization. But I think that the fact that when they're federally funded, we can no longer claim that. One of the things that was evident in the study that I ran was people are willing to forego proper work in their communities to prepare for disaster in favor of obtaining federal grants. That was overwhelmingly the response of county emergency managers in this country was they understood that their intake of federal dollars and the related administrative work that came with it. Was inhibited local response because it dictated some of the things they could buy, dictated some of the things they had to do, it took their time. And that was the bottom line, and they understood that that was an inhibition of local emergency planning. And I think that that speaks right there, it's not decentralized just because you have grown your tentacles into local jurisdictions that not kind of speak to an improvement in a centralized model. Yes, and really makes people, just like you said earlier, it takes away like these people are no longer your neighbors, but people to be managed. Like, that's just so sad, the commoditization of everything. Oh, these are just people that don't get it and you get it and you have your badge and you'll manage them. Yeah, awful. I'm curious, is there, I've got this next clip here, this is a trucker who's complaining about Red Cross and all that, which we'll watch. I'm wondering, is there a way for people to help, like not necessarily local neighbors, people outside of the local community, shipping stuff in, who do they trust, who do they go through when this is the response from Red Cross. I'm just now driving out of Asheville, it's October 9th, dropped off a bunch of supplies in Black Mountain this morning at Silverado Saloon there, and then started driving to three or four different fire departments, Black Mountain Fire Department. So, you know, E Valley, I think, and then went over to Fleming Fire Department, and then Fletching or Fletcher. I did see FEMA, they were at the Asheville Airport, a big $300,000 truck with a big satellite antenna on it, and that's about it. And then, oh, and I did see Red Cross in a white tent with two old ladies in it and lawn chairs drinking water, with no supplies around them at all. I did see that, that's all I saw out of those two organizations in it. I believe them. Yeah, I don't know what I believe them. Yeah, and we've talked on the show about who to trust as far as non for profits, because even these nonprofits that pretend like they're not tied to the government in any way, they're still whether or not they are tied to the government. They're giving the same government response and pretending like they're doing the Lord's work. Do you got any insight on that? Yeah, Red Cross, as I understand it, so first they do not have a good history of donations or of managing funds. I think there have been multiple times in the past they have been scrutinized for their overhead for salaries, for paying salaries as opposed to kind of managing donations and helping it during disaster. But also, I want to say they are recipients of federal funding as well. There is a piece of Eman DHS funding that is set aside for nonprofits. So that would make them synonymous, not only with government, but with kind of the centralized approach to emergency management that we've been talking about. There are some things you can do. I have heard very good things about the operation down south with Samaritan's Purse that people are inclined to trust them that they have been on the ground, that they have met their commitments. And that that is a safe donation to make. So that's Samaritan's Purse. And then the libertarian has a mutual aid organization run by Pat Ford as well. I'm supposed to speak with him later. And I know that they have an organization that is at least collecting donations, if not deploying people to be affected areas. But for me, it's very easy. My church is incredibly involved in mission work in this area anyway. And we have our pastor's family is in the Swannona area. That's probably an area you haven't heard about. It's one of the most hard hit areas. So it's very easy to connect with your church if you have one and make sure you can kind of bet what those donations are going attend if you're able. Go on that trip. I think Dylan and I are going to head down later in October, early in November and help with cleanup. There are ways, but the Red Cross is notorious for mismanagement of their funds. And it's not the first time I have heard from interns. Absolutely. Now, in other news, it said in your bio that you were writing for this company called Distant Media. I haven't heard of them. Could you expand on that? Yeah, that's what that's what makes today fun. It's fun to be here with the two of you. And then the absence of Dylan and Mike will add that they are partners here too. They are not those things. Can't let an opportunity go. Can you do just saying nice things about you? Yeah, this is fun. And you know, when I spoke with Matt over the weekend was the first time I really spoke publicly about our project, right? The Distant Media Project, and we talked a little bit about the fact that right now we're building a stable of authors. We're putting out articles that's going to increase. We have an active social media presence, Dave, and Dan, you guys are hard at work preparing our a merch shop for us and, you know, kind of making sure that your, you know, that this show has become kind of a part of the media network. And that network is going to grow. I think we'll know that the three of us and Mike and Dylan will be excited to roll out some of the content creators who will be with us. And we're working on the boring, you know, in the background, like, boring administrative contracts and things like that. But I'm excited about the project. And, you know, if you're doing the boring administrative stuff because Dave and I have no idea how to you. So, thank you. Yeah, well, I'm not, you know, and I'm not, you know, there's not really a creative phone in my body. So I'm grateful for the, for the two of you. But if the work that you did at rescue the Republic and rage against the war is any indication of the things we'll get to do when we go out and we're out and about and talking with people. It's going to be awesome and I can't wait to kind of announce that we're adding people to our team. Absolutely. And where can people find that stuff? Well, right now, you can find us at Dissident Media on Twitter, which I think is the platform we're most active on. And you can sign up and be in the know as we roll out kind of what Dissident Media is going to look like at Dissident Media.net. We should have a sign up. Nice. Yeah. We haven't really talked about it on this show, Dave, but I'm sure we'll get into it much more in the near future, not too distant. Maybe we'll bring some of the other guys on along with Amy as well. But yeah, Amy basically is the one breaking the story here, too, because she's always, she's always got the scoop. Amy, you got any final thoughts on FEMA on Distant Media on anything else or anything else you want to cover? Yeah, I think the FEMA story will be important to watch. I'm curious to know how it, how the situation on the ground improves for people who are affected by Hurricane Helene. And then I'm also curious to understand better the impact really on the election, because I don't have my head around again, the kind of incompetence from FEMA versus kind of a more nefarious plot from those folks. I suspect it is more like what Dave discussed. So I'm going to be looking to that. Maybe we can talk about that more. Yeah. Dave, any thoughts? Any final thoughts? Anything? I mean, we don't really get into the fact that these hurricanes are speeding up over land and that's, I'm not a weather guy either. That just doesn't sound normal to me. But go ahead, Dave. Uh, no, get that Nancy Fag button ready, bro, because I just want to say that I am, I love our team. If I could select it, make a dream team, it would literally be the people who are on it. So, uh, sky's the limit, and I can't wait to fuck shit up with you guys. It's very exciting. ♪♪♪ Oh, I'm sorry. That was the wrong button. You said, you said the other button. I got to make stuff somehow. That one's good, too. It works. Just interchangeable. Cool. And you can find me at this@tsidpod.com. This is down.tv@tsidpod on Twitter. Distantmedia.net. Amy, where can people find you and everything that you're doing? [laughs] You can find me on Twitter at ArchitableDork. But mostly, I'm just retweeting Distant Media stuff. Right on. All right, y'all. It's been fun. If we're all good here, we can go watch the world burn in real time together outside of the internet. And have some fun. Amy, thank you so much for being here and giving us your time on Friday morning. Dave, thank you for being here always and giving me your time. And thank you to the comments section that we completely ignored. Let's see. I guess we should know. No fake super chats. All right. Well, go join the Downers Club and we'll pay attention to you next time. Until then, question everything staying comfortable. Be bad, have fun, and we'll talk to you then. See you guys. ♪♪ Welcome to the system. ♪♪ Everyone's a victim. ♪♪ Doesn't matter. ♪♪ If you're black or white, I hate you all. ♪♪ Now the system violence is a symptom. ♪♪ Fighting for what's right. ♪♪ But somehow everyone is wrong. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ This has been a Dissident Media Production. ♪♪ Dissident Media.net. ♪♪ ♪♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]
